Page:Emily Bronte (Robinson 1883).djvu/143

Rh So said I, and still say the same;

Still, to my death, will say—

Three gods, within this little frame,

Are warring night and day;

Heaven could not hold them all, and yet

They all are held in me,

And must be mine till I forget

My present entity!

Oh, for the time, when in my breast

Their struggles will be o'er!

Oh, for the day, when I shall rest,

And never suffer more!

I saw a spirit, standing, man,

Where thou dost stand an hour ago,

And round his feet three rivers ran,

Of equal depth, and equal flow

A golden stream, and one like blood,

And one like sapphire seemed to be;

But, where they joined their triple flood

It tumbled in an inky sea.

The spirit sent his dazzling gaze

Down through that ocean's gloomy night

Then, kindling all, with sudden blaze,

The glad deep sparkled wide and bright—

White as the sun, far, far more fair,

Than its divided sources were!

And even for that spirit, seer,

I've watched and sought my life-time long;

Sought him in heaven, hell, earth and air—

An endless search, and always wrong!

Had I but seen his glorious eye

Once light the clouds that 'wilder me,

I ne'er had raised this coward cry

To cease to think, and cease to be;

I ne'er had called oblivion blest,

Nor, stretching eager hands to death,

Implored to change for senseless rest

This sentient soul, this living breath—